“Negativity works like poison in the bloodstream: if you give into its power, it will weaken your confidence and kill your dream.”
Your goals are simply too important to let that happen!
“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” Winston Churchill
“To bear defeat with dignity, to accept criticism with poise, to receive honors with humility -- these are marks of maturity and graciousness.” William Arthur Ward
Accept criticism and disappointment as part of life and when it comes, stand up, look it in the eye, and say, “you can’t defeat me, I am bigger than you.” You see, size does matter. The bigness of your spirit and the size of your heart often determines how you respond when critical words are said about you and people criticize your accomplishments and failures.
“Burning desire to be or do something gives us staying power - a reason to get up every morning or to pick ourselves up and start in again after a disappointment” Marsha Sinetar
“Anytime I am looking to somebody else as my source, I'm coming from scarcity. I am no longer trusting God, or the Universe, for my harvest. It's reasonable for me to have expectations based on what somebody I trust has committed to. And it's natural for me to feel disappointed when that somebody doesn't come through. But when I feel more than disappointment, when I also feel anger, it's because I deviated from my truth. It's because I compromised my truth to get what somebody else promised. Because when I'm really following my truth, I will be at peace with the consequences — whatever they are. I can accept somebody else's truth, but I must live my own truth. And sometimes that means walking away from a relationship.” Jan Denise
My friends, rise tall when criticism comes your way. Look it in the eye and say, ‘I am bigger than you, I am going to become better because of this.’
When adversity hits, when you drop the ball, know that you are bigger than the situation. Don’t make the mistake that many have made and shrink/smaller to the size of other people’s opinions, other people’s dreams, other people’s concepts of what you ought to be and do. Rise tall! Realize that you are bigger than the situation. Understand the power of posture/attitude and put yourself above the circumstance, not under it.
Challenge: Think about those situations in your life that you need to rise above. Consider possible response and estimate what results you will get from them. Surprise your critics by being typical in your response.
“All the significant battles are waged within self. Think about it. “Before anything materializes in your life, it generally happens on the inside of you.”
Our insecurities come from the inside and often manifest themselves on the outside, perhaps in wariness or aggression, in hearsay/babble or pride. We heard someone once say that talent is God – given, so be humble, fame is man – given, be thankful, conceit is self – given, be careful.
Success is a battle fought on the inside of a man or a woman before it ever is an outside battle. What are some of the battles that wage within us? The battle not to quit, the battle not to view yourself as a mistake or a failure, the battle not to muse on our circumstances, not to blame others or be full of pride, the battle of loneliness; you and I have to enjoy our own company before we will ever enjoy anybody else’s company.
Success in your life is a mindset. You can be successful in the middle of pain.
The Challenge: What can you do to make sure you win the battle? 1st, understand that there is a battle. 2nd, get advice from people who have won battles in their lives. If you’re struggling in business and don’t know why, go and talk to someone who has some wins and some losses and find out how they came through. 3rd, don’t look for quick fixes to problems, especially long term problems. Be genuine and honest with things in your life. Wear a sign around your neck that say ‘Be patient, I am under construction’. Wear it so others can see it, but also realize the same is true for others. Understand that your life is constantly under construction.
Achieving high-level success requires the support and the cooperation of others. And gaining this support and cooperation of others requires leadership ability.
Four leadership rules or principles that can cause others to do things for us in the executive suite, in business, in social clubs, in the home, anywhere we find people:
1. Trade minds with the people you want to influence. Is a magic way to get others – friends, associates, customers, and employees – to act the way you want them to act. To get others to do what you want them to do, you must see things through their eyes. When you trade minds, the secret of how to influence other people effectively shows up (ex. one political candidate for a national office apparently fully as qualified as his opponent lost by a tremendous margin for one single reason. He used a vocabulary that only a small percentage of voters could understand.) Keep this question in mind: “What would I think of this if I exchanged places with the other persons?” Thinking of the interests of the people we want to influence is an excellent thought rule in every situation.
Put the trading minds principle to work for you:
2. Think: What is the human way to handle this? People use different approaches to leadership situations. One approach is to assume the position of a dictator. – Makes all decision without consulting those affected. He refuses to hear his subordinates’ side of a question because down deep perhaps, he’s afraid the subordinate might be right and this would cause him to lose face. Dictators don’t last long. Employee may fake loyalty for a while but unrest soon develops. Second leadership technique is the cold, mechanical. The fellow using this approach handles everything exactly according to the book. He doesn’t recognize hat every rule or policy or plan is only a guide for the usual cases. This would-be leader treats human beings as machines. Third person who rise to tremendous leadership height use a “Being Human.” You are a human being, I respect you, I’m here to help you in every way I can. “Whoever is under a man’s power is under his protection, too.” Anybody can hire a man. But the test of leadership is how one handles the dismissal.
Two ways to use the be-human approach to make you a better leader:
First. Each time you face a difficult matter involving people, ask yourself, ”What is the human way to handle this?”. Avoid sarcasm, avoid being cynical, avoid taking people down a peg or two. Avoid putting others in their place. Ask “what is the human way to deal with people?” It always pays-sometimes sooner, sometime later. But it always pays
Second. To let your action show you put people first. Show interest in your subordinates off the job accomplishments, treat everyone with dignity. Remind yourself that the primary purpose in life is to enjoy it. As a general rule, the more interest you show in a person, the more he will produce for you, and this what carries you forward to greater success. Practice praising people. Rub people the right way.
3. Think Progress, Believe in Progress, Push for Progress. Promotion in all fields go to individual who believe in-and push for progress. Develop a forward look.
Two special things you can do to develop your progressive outlook.
Believe in-and push for progress, and you’ll be a leader. Remember this: When you take over the leadership of a group, the persons in that group immediately begin to adjust themselves to the standard you set. This is most noticeable during the first few weeks. Their big concern is to clue you in, zero you in, find out what you expect of them. They watch every move you make. They think, How does he want it done? What does it take to please him? What will he say if I do this or that? Once they know, they act accordingly. Check the example you set. Use this ever-accurate as a guide: “What kind of world would this world be, if everyone in it were just like me? In similar fashion, ask yourself, What kind of club, community, school, church would it be if everyone in it acted like you. Think, talk, act, live the way you want your subordinates to think, talk, act, live - and they will. Over a period of time, subordinates tend to become carbon copies of their chief. The simplest way to get high-level performance is to be sure the master copy is worth duplicating.
Am I a Progress thinker? Checklist:
A. Do I think progressively toward my work?
B. Do I think progressively toward my family?
1. Is my family happier today than it was three or six months ago?
2. Am I following a plan to improve my family’s standard of living?
3. Does my family have an ample variety of stimulating activities outside the home?
4. Do I set an example of a progressive, a supporter of progress for my children?
C. Do I think progressively toward myself?
D. Do I think progressively toward my community?
4. Take time out to confer with yourself and tap your supreme thinking power.
Don’t be a Mr. I-can’t-stand-to-be-alone. Successful leaders tap their superpower through being alone. (When Mr. I-can’t-stand-to-be-alone is forced by circumstances to be physically alone, he resorts to television, newspaper, radio, tel., anything that will take over his thinking process for him.) As part of professional development program: Closet ourselves for one hour each day, shut themselves/ourselves off from all distractions and think constructively about anything that come to mind.
Two kind of thinking we can use:
How to use the Thinking Big in life’s most crucial situations:
There is magic in thinking big but it so easy to forget. When you hit some rough spots, there is danger that your thinking will shrink in size. And when it does, you lose. Brief guides for staying big when you’re tempted to use the small approach:
A. When Little People Try to Drive Your Down, Think Big.
To be sure, there are some people who want you to lose, to experience misfortune, to be reprimanded. But these people can’t hurt you if you’ll remember three things:
B. When That “I-Haven’t-Got-What-It-Takes” Feeling Creeps Up on You, Think Big. Remember: If you think you are weak, you are. If you think you’re inadequate, you are. If you think you’re second class, you are. Whip/trash that natural tendency to sell yourself short with these tools:
C. When an Argument or Quarrel Seems Inevitable/foreseeable. Think Big. Successfully resist the temptation to argue and quarrel by:
D. When You Feel Defeated, Think Big. It is not possible to achieve large success without hardships and setbacks/disappointment/loss/misfortune/defeat. But it is possible to live the rest of your life without defeat. Big thinkers react to setbacks this way:
E. When Romance Starts to Slip, Think Big. Negative, petty, “She’s (He)-unfair-to-me-so-I’ll-get-even” type of thinking slaughters romance, destroys the affection that can be yours. Do this when things aren’t going right in the love department:
F. When You Feel Your Progress on the Job is Slowing Down. Think Big. No matter what you do and regardless of your occupation, higher status, higher pay comes from one thing: Increasing the quality and quantity of your output. Do this:
Think, “I can do better”, the best is not unattainable. There is room for doing everything better. Nothing in this world is being done as well as it could be. And when you think, “I can do better” ways to do better will appear, thinking, “I can do better” switches on your creative power. Think big enough to see that if you put service first, money takes care of itself.
In the words of Publilius Syrus:
“A wise man will be master of his mind, A fool will be its slave.”
To be important, we must think we are important, really think so, so others will think so too.
“How you think determines how you act, How you act in turn determines how others react to you”
To gain the respect of others, you must first think you deserve respect. And the more respect you have for yourself, the more respect others will have for you. How you look on the outside affects how you think and feel on the inside. Your appearance talks to you, but it also talks to others. It helps determine what others think of you.
Think your work is important.
Job thinking tells a lot about a person and his potential for larger responsibility. A person who thinks his job is important, receives mental signals on how to do his job better, and a better job means more promotions, more money, more prestige, more happiness. The way we think toward our job determines how our subordinates think toward their job.
Two suggestions for getting others to do more for you:
Give yourself a pep talk several times daily.
Practice uplifting self-praise. Don’t practice belittling self-punishment. You are what you think you are. Think more of yourself and there is more of you. Build your own “sell-yourself-to-yourself” commercial.
Tom Stanley, meet Tom Stanley – an important, a really important person. Tom, you’re a big thinker, so think big, Think big about everything. You’ve got plenty of ability to do a first-class job, so do a first class job. Tom, you believe in happiness, progress and prosperity, So: talk only happiness, talk only progress, talk only prosperity. You have lots of drive, Tom, lots of drive. So put that drive to work. Nothing can stop you, Tom, nothing. Tom, you’re enthusiastic. Let your enthusiasm show through. You look good, tom, and you fill good. Stay that way. Tom, you were a great fellow yesterday and you’re going to be an even greater fellow today. Now, go to it, Tom, Go forward.
Here’s how to build your sell-yourself-to-yourself commercial.
Upgrade your thinking. Think like important people think. Upgrading your thinking upgrades your actions, and this produces success.
How Am I thinking? Checklist:
When I worry
Ask Yourself: Would an important person worry about this? Would the most successful person I now be disturbed about this?
An Idea
What would an important person do if he had their idea?
My appearance
Do I look like someone who has maximum self-respect?
My language
Am I using the language of successful people?
What I read
Would an important person read this?
Conversation
Is this something successful people would discuss?
When I lose my temper
Would an important person get mad at what I’m mad at?
My jokes
Is this the kind of joke an important person would tell?
My job
How does an important person describe his job to others?